Disquiet, Please!

JAMES THURBER
 
 
THE BREAKING UP OF THE WINSHIPS
 
THE trouble that broke up the Gordon Winships seemed to me, at first, as minor a problem as frost on a windowpane. Another day, a touch of sun, and it would be gone. I was inclined to laugh it off, and, indeed, as a friend of both Gordon and Marcia, I spent a great deal of time with each of them, separately, trying to get them to laugh it off, too with him at his club, where he sat drinking Scotch and smoking too much, and with her in their apartment, that seemed so large and lonely without Gordon and his restless moving around and his quick laughter. But it was no good; they were both adamant. Their separation has lasted now more than two months. I doubt very much that they will ever go back together again.
 
It all started one night at Leonardo s, after dinner, over their Bénédictine. It started innocently enough, amiably even, with laughter from both of them, laughter that froze finally as the clock ran on and their words came out sharp and flat and stinging. They had been to see Anna Karenina. Gordon hadn t liked it very much: He said that Fredric March s haircut made the whole thing seem silly. Marcia had been crazy about it because she is crazy about Greta Garbo. She belongs to that considerable army of Garbo admirers whose enchantment borders almost on fanaticism and sometimes even touches the edges of frenzy. I think that, before everything happened, Gordon admired Garbo, too, but the depth of his wife s conviction that here was the greatest figure ever seen in our generation on sea or land, on screen or stage, exasperated him that night. Gordon hates (or used to) exaggeration, and he respects (or once did) detachment. It was his feeling that detachment is a necessary thread in the fabric of a woman s charm. He didn t like to see his wife get herself into a sweat over anything and, that night at Leonardo s, he unfortunately used that expression and made that accusation.

David Remnick is the editor of The New Yorker.

Henry Finder is the editorial director of The New Yorker.

The laughs start with the title and never stop. Entertainment Weekly
 
Plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Washington Post
  
Some names in this collection elicit laughter upon mention Woody Allen, Dorothy Parker, E. B. White but meet some new voices Simon Rich on free-range chicks, Noah Baumbach on his last relationship in the form of Zagat reviews. Chicago Tribune, Editor s Choice
  
[Spans] decades of brilliant lunacy. . . . Warning label: Guffaws are a side effect of ingesting Disquiet. San Diego Union-Tribune
 
Stellar indeed. . . . One of the joys of this collection is seeing how the writers approach a seemingly innocuous idea, then stretch it, shake it and bake it into something completely ridiculous and hilarious. Toronto Star